From what I've read and seen, the GN and NP liked to spread their
eastward traffic around from the Twin Cities. It was pretty evenly split
among the railroads for the eastern haul. It wasn't until the BN merger
that the bulk of this was switched to Q line to Chicago (no reason to
short haul yourself). The merger changed a lot of the traffic patterns.
The 1968 GN wheel reports that have been posted by some GN folks show
this distribution. There was as much or more going CNW and SOO as the Q
got. The CGW and RI also got their share. There was not an insignificant
number of cars handed off to the Q by the GN that made the trip east via
the Q to East Winona and then on the GBW to cross Lake Michigan on the
ferry to the Ann Arbor.
Since these NP P-S cars were Class A boxcars (clean commodities), the
local agent at the location were the car was emptied would attempt to
get a Class A load to put in the car for it's return west. The railroad
prefers a load rather than shipping one back empty to get the revenue.
And since there was a boxcar shortage in the 1960s due to the financial
condition of the eastern railroads, finding a load was probably not very
difficult. This was a common complaint of the western carriers. If you
have BRHS CD of the railroad issued Burlington Bulletins, you'll see
this topic was discussed again and again. Also at this time, the primary
flow of freight was still east to west across the country, so a
relatively new nice boxcar with a relatively clean interior would be a
strong candidate for a return load. The flow of empties was much more
west to east at that time (with the exception of produce reefers).
I've converted those GN text consists into Excel files. So I've attached
them so you can see for yourself.
Bill Hirt
On 4/10/2021 6:14 AM, Tom Mack via groups.io wrote:
I just picked up a couple of Tangent's new double door 40' NP box cars
(one plug, one sliding). These cars, mostly loaded with lumber, were
very common on Q trains heading east from Mpls/StP. If you haven't
ordered one (or two, or whatever), they look to be superb cars of a
unique design!
Now to the topic. I got to thinking about an earlier thread about
empty NP and GN box cars being collected at Cicero and then moved to
Mpls/StP in extras once a certain number accumulated - basically a
unit train of empty box cars. But then I got to thinking about reverse
routing of empties and per diem rates and began to wonder how this
would have worked. The cars coming eastbound would have been loaded,
and anything going east of Chicago would have come through Chicago.
Reverse routing would have brought the cars back to Chicago. But then
it seems that the empty box cars would have immediately headed back
westbound on the next train so the Q could avoid the per diem charges.
Why keep the GN and NP box cars in the yard longer than you have to?
On the other hand, it might have been more economical to let them
accumulate and send them out on an single extra. So I am wondering if
anyone knows the reasoning behind the box car extras.
Can anyone explain how this might have worked on the Q? I have
accumulated a lot of GN and NP boxcars simply because there were so
many of them and a great variety that moved eastbound across my line
(Mpls/StP to Chicago). I suddenly realized I can run an empty
westbound box car extra of pure NP and GN boxes of all types, which
would be pretty cool, and a great way to put all those GN and NP box
cars to better and more frequent use!
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GN_82_Wheel_Reports.xls
Description: MS-Excel spreadsheet
GN_88_Wheel_Reports.xls
Description: MS-Excel spreadsheet
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